An analytical framework for strategic delta planning: negotiating consent for long-term sustainable delta development

Sectoral planning on water, agriculture and urban development has not been able to prevent increased flood risks and environmental degradation in many deltas. Governments conceive strategic delta planning as a promising planning approach and develop strategic delta plans. Such plans are linked to actions and means for implementation in the short-term, in line with long-term strategic choices. This paper introduces an analytical framework that focuses on the role of actors, innovative solutions and participatory planning tools in negotiating consent for the strategic choices in a delta plan and its implementation. Cases of Bangladesh, the Netherlands and Vietnam are discussed as a plausibility probe to explore the framework's potential. The probe reveals that the framework is promising to explain the process and outcomes of strategic delta planning in urbanizing deltas. The paper ends with an initial research agenda to stimulate research and discussion on this new delta planning approach.     

Investigating habitat value to inform contaminant remediation options: case study

Habitat valuation methods were implemented to support remedial decisions for aquatic and terrestrial contaminated sites at the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP) on the US Department of Energy (DOE) Oak Ridge Reservation in Oak Ridge, TN, USA. The habitat valuation was undertaken for six contaminated sites: Contractor's Spoil Area, K-901-N Disposal Area, K-770 Scrapyard, K-1007-P1 pond, K-901 pond, and the Mitchell Branch stream. Four of these sites are within the industrial use area of ETTP and two are in the Black Oak Ridge Conservation Easement. These sites represent terrestrial and aquatic habitat for vertebrates, terrestrial habitat for plants, and aquatic habitat for benthic invertebrates. Current and potential future, no-action (no remediation) scenarios were evaluated primarily using existing information. Valuation metrics and scoring criteria were developed in a companion paper, this volume. The habitat valuation consists of extensive narratives, as well as scores for aspects of site use value, site rarity, and use value added from spatial context. Metrics for habitat value were expressed with respect to different spatial scales, depending on data availability. There was significant variation in habitat value among the six sites, among measures for different taxa at a single site, between measures of use and rarity at a single site, and among measures for particular taxa at a single site with respect to different spatial scales. Most sites had aspects of low, medium, and high habitat value. Few high scores for current use value were given. These include: wetland plant communities at all aquatic sites, Lepomid sunfish and waterbirds at 1007-P1 pond, and Lepomid sunfish and amphibians at K-901 pond. Aquatic sites create a high-value ecological corridor for waterbirds, and the Contractor's Spoil Area and possibly the K-901-N Disposal Site have areas that are part of a strong terrestrial ecological corridor. The only example of recent observations of rare species at these sites is the gray bat observed at the K-1007-P1 pond. Some aspects of habitat value are expected to improve under no-action scenarios at a few of the sites. Methods are applicable to other contaminated sites where sufficient ecological data are available for the site and region.     

Planning,governance and rural futures in Australia and the USA: revisiting the case for rural regional planning

Rural regions in post-industrial countries confront significant new challenges, particularly in relation to climate, biodiversity, unconventional resource development and energy. Yet at a time when the contours of these challenges are still being sketched, and preliminary, planned interventions undertaken, the practice of rural planning finds itself at a low ebb. We examine two ‘critical cases’, one each from Australia and the USA, to explore the issues and options for capacity of rural regional planning to surmount these new challenges. Our examination indicates the urgent need for a renewed discourse on rural regional planning.     

Web-based GIS for collaborative planning and public participation: an application to the strategic planning of wind farm sites

Spatial planning typically involves multiple stakeholders. To any specific planning problem, stakeholders often bring different levels of knowledge about the components of the problem and make assumptions, reflecting their individual experiences, that yield conflicting views about desirable planning outcomes. Consequently, stakeholders need to learn about the likely outcomes that result from their stated preferences; this learning can be supported through enhanced access to information, increased public participation in spatial decision-making and support for distributed collaboration amongst planners, stakeholders and the public. This paper presents a conceptual system framework for web-based GIS that supports public participation in collaborative planning. The framework combines an information area, a Multi-Criteria Spatial Decision Support System (MC-SDSS) and an argumentation map to support distributed and asynchronous collaboration in spatial planning. After analysing the novel aspects of this framework, the paper describes its implementation, as a proof of concept, in a system for Web-based Participatory Wind Energy Planning (WePWEP). Details are provided on the specific implementation of each of WePWEP's four tiers, including technical and structural aspects. Throughout the paper, particular emphasis is placed on the need to support user learning throughout the planning process.     

Reflexivity and developmental constructs: the case of sustainable futures

ABSTRACT

The quest for sustainability signals a departure from industrialist presuppositions about the human capacity to control nature that had hardly been questioned during the modern era. Environmental politics, indeed, entered the public scene with warnings of environmental crisis that disrupted industrialist assumptions and supported a call for a dramatic change in course. As environmental problems became part of an agenda of sustainable development, however, there came a shift from a disruptive politics towards professionalization and a managerial emphasis. A reflexive approach to sustainability needs to reconsider the relevance of politics while also thematizing problems of history and power. The concept of ‘developmental constructs’, which Harold D. Lasswell offered as part of his proposal for a reflexive project of contextual mapping, is advanced here as relevant to that end. Comparing the early interventions of Rachel Carson and Amory Lovins to Lasswell's conception of developmental constructs, the article maintains that such proposals for sustainable futures highlight the importance of a political connection.     

The design and use of strategic planning arenas

This paper takes a close look at communication, process, power and institutional arrangements in the context of strategic planning. It introduces an eight step process for structuring strategic thinking and acting and develops the concept of “arenas” as a very influential — yet often very subtle — exercise of power over the course of a strategic planning process.     

Drinking water risk assessment in practice: the case of Swedish drinking water producers at risk from floods

To achieve a safe and reliable drinking water supply, water producers need to manage a large range of risks regarding both water quality and quantity. A risk management approach where risks are systematically identified and handled in a preventive manner is promoted by the World Health Organization and supported by researchers and drinking water experts worldwide. Risk assessment is an important part of such a management approach, and a variety of tools for risk assessment are described in the literature. There is, however, little knowledge of how drinking water risk assessment is performed in practice, including which tools that are actually used. This study investigates the use of risk assessment tools, and the approach to risk management, on a local level in the Swedish water sector. It is based on interviews with key persons from a targeted selection of water producers. We find that the application of tools as well as the approach to risk assessment and management differs considerably between the water producers. The tools most frequently used are mainly the ones promoted or required by Swedish national organizations. Although many of the water producers have done some kind of risk assessment, most have not implemented a risk management approach. Furthermore, their knowledge of the concepts of risk and risk management is often limited. The largest challenge identified is to prioritize risk assessment, so that it is actually performed and then used as a basis for managing risk in a systematic way.     

Application of environmental risk assessment for strategic decision-making in coastal areas: case studies in China

Environmental risk assessment (ERA) is a powerful technical tool for analyzing potential and extreme adverse environmental impacts, and has found wide application in supporting decision-making processes over the last two decades. However, to date there has been no interrelated application of ERA to support the processes of strategic decision-making (SDM), especially in coastal areas.

In this paper, we attempt to verify the feasibility of the proposed integrated ERA–SDM approach and its methodology by applying it to two case studies (in Xiamen Bay and Luoyuan Bay) of the principal coastal functional zoning (PCFZ, a kind of SDM and similar to the coastal and marine spatial planning in western). The results show that the integrated ERA–SDM approach could integrate ERA into the entire SDM process, directly support the PCFZ, and avoid or mitigate dire environmental risk that can be introduced by SDM processes.     

A critical investigation of evaluation matrices to inform coastal adaptation and planning decisions at the local scale

Local governments are under pressure to tackle an increasing spectrum of complex contemporary problems, such as climate change, while ensuring multiple stakeholder interests are incorporated into decision processes. Multi-criteria decision tools can assist, but challenges remain in creating an enabling environment for incorporating and balancing different stakeholder perspectives. Here, we draw on interview data and a sensitivity analysis to investigate the use of an evaluation matrix to guide local coastal adaptation decision-making in South Africa. We adopt a participatory action research framework and find that decision-making is influenced by individual, departmental and institutional values that are not adequately captured in the matrix approach. Our study reveals the compromise between achieving broad stakeholder representation and utilising technical expertise, and that altering matrix assumptions can imply different decision outcomes. Suggestions are made to improve multi-criteria decision approaches to better facilitate integrated coastal management in responding to local coastal adaptation challenges.     

Quantifying sources of climate uncertainty to inform risk analysis for climate change decision-making

Quantitative estimates of future climate change and its various impacts are often based on complex climate models which incorporate a number of physical processes. As these models continue to become more sophisticated, it is commonly assumed that the latest generation of climate models will provide us with better estimates of climate change. Here, we quantify the uncertainty in future climate change projections using two multi-model ensembles of climate model simulations and divide it into different components: internal, scenario and model. The contributions of these sources of uncertainty changes as a function of variable, temporal and spatial scale and especially lead time in the future. In the new models, uncertainty intervals for each of the components have increased. For temperature, importance of scenario uncertainty is the largest over low latitudes and increases nonlinearly after the mid-century. It has a small importance for precipitation simulations on all time scales, which hampers estimating the effect which any mitigation efforts might have. In line with current state-of-the-art adaptation approaches, we argue that despite these uncertainties climate models can provide useful information to support adaptation decision-making. Moreover, adaptation decisions should not be postponed in the hope that future improved scientific understanding will result in more accurate predictions of future climate change. Such simulations might not become available. On the contrary, while planning adaptation initiatives, a rational framework for decision-making under uncertainty should be employed. We suggest that there is an urgent need for continued development and use of improved risk analysis methods for climate change adaptation.     

Past climate, future perspective: an exploratory analysis using climate proxies and drought risk assessment to inform water resources management and policy in Maine, USA

In recent decades, significant progress has been made toward reconstructing the past climate record based on environmental proxies, such as tree rings and ice core records. However, limited examples of research that utilizes such data for water resources decision-making and policy exist. Here, we use the reconstructed record of Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI), dating back to 1138AD to understand the nature of drought occurrence (severity and duration) in the state of Maine. This work is motivated by the need to augment the scientific basis to support the water resources management and the emerging water allocation framework in Maine (Maine Department of Environmental Protection, Chapter 587). Through a joint analysis of the reconstructed PDSI and historical streamflow record for twelve streams in the state of Maine, we find that: (a) the uncertainties around the current definition of natural drought in the Chapter 587 (based on the 20th century instrumental record) can be better understood within the context of the nature and severity of past droughts in this region, and (b) a drought index provides limited information regarding at-site hydrologic variations. To fill this knowledge gap, a drought index-based risk assessment methodology for streams across the state is developed. Based on these results, the opportunities for learning and challenges facing water policies in a changing hydroclimate are discussed.     

Classification and assessment of water bodies as adaptive structural measures for flood risk management planning

Severe rainfall events have become increasingly common in Europe. Flood defence engineering works are highly capital intensive and can be limited by land availability, leaving land and communities exposed to repeated flooding. Any adaptive drainage structure must have engineered inlets and outlets that control the water level and the rate of release. In Scotland, there are a relatively high number of drinking water reservoirs (operated by Scottish Water), which fall within this defined category and could contribute to flood management control. Reducing the rate of runoff from the upper reaches of a catchment will reduce the volume and peak flows of flood events downstream, thus allowing flood defences to be reduced in size, decreasing the corresponding capital costs. A database of retention basins with flood control potential has been developed for Scotland. The research shows that the majority of small and former drinking water reservoirs are kept full and their spillways are continuously in operation. Utilising some of the available capacity to contribute to flood control could reduce the costs of complying with the EU Flood Directive. Furthermore, the application of a previously developed classification model for Baden in Germany for the Scottish data set showed a lower diversity for basins in Scotland due to less developed infrastructure. The principle value of this approach is a clear and unambiguous categorisation, based on standard variables, which can help to promote communication and understanding between stakeholders.     

Application of multiple objective models to water resources planning and management

Over the past 30 years, we have seen the birth and growth of multiple objective analysis from an idea without tools to one with useful applications. Models have been developed and applications have been researched to address the multiple purposes and objectives inherent in the development and management of water resources. A practical approach to multiple objective modelling incorporates macroeconomic-based policies and expectations in order to optimize the results from both engineering (structural) and management (non-structural) alternatives, while taking into account the economic and environmental trade-offs.     

Landscape ecological assessment: a tool for integrating biodiversity issues in strategic environmental assessment and planning

To achieve a sustainable development, impacts on biodiversity of urbanisation, new infrastructure projects and other land use changes must be considered on landscape and regional scales. This requires that important decisions are made after a systematic evaluation of environmental impacts. Landscape ecology can provide a conceptual framework for the assessment of consequences of long-term development processes like urbanisation on biodiversity components, and for evaluating and visualising the impacts of alternative planning scenarios. The aim of this paper was to develop methods for integrating biodiversity issues in planning and strategic environmental assessment in an urbanising environment, on landscape and regional levels. In order to test developed methods, a case study was conducted in the region of Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, and the study area embraced the city centre, suburbs and peri-urban areas. Focal species were tested as indicators of habitat quality, quantity and connectivity in the landscape. Predictive modelling of habitat distribution in geographic information systems involved the modelling of focal species occurrences based on empirical data, incorporated in a landscape ecological decision support system. When habitat models were retrieved, they were applied on future planning scenarios in order to predict and assess the impacts on focal species. The scenario involving a diffuse exploitation pattern had the greatest negative impacts on the habitat networks of focal species. The scenarios with concentrated exploitation also had negative impacts, although they were possible to mitigate quite easily. The predictions of the impacts on habitats networks of focal species made it possible to quantify, integrate and visualise the effects of urbanisation scenarios on aspects of biodiversity on a landscape level.     

Display and interpretation of fire behavior probabilities for long-term planning

Fire management planning for wildlands traditionally uses fire behavior estimated on the basis of worst-case weather at a specific site, but more realistic estimates can be obtained by considering the entire distribution of possible sites and weather conditions. Probability distributions of four widely used fire behavior variables were derived for four test cases in the Northern Rockies and Northern Intermountain Zone. The variables were rate of spread, fireline intensity, fire perimeter length-to-width ratio, and scorch height. Results were depicted in simple line graphs, three-dimensional pin graphs, and tables; they ranged from the cumulative probability of one variable to joint probabilities of four variables. Increasing the number of variables depicted increased the amount and scope of information available. Examples of interpreting the graphs and tables show how these techniques can be used in long-term fire program planning, fire suppression, management of various resources affected by fire, and interdisciplinary resource planning.     

Between adaptability and the urge to control: making long-term water policies in the Netherlands

Triggered by recent flood catastrophes and increasing concerns about climate change, scientists as well as policy-makers increasingly call for making long-term water policies to enable a transformation towards flood resilience. A key question is how to make these long-term policies adaptive so that they are able to deal with uncertainties and changing circumstances. The paper proposes three conditions for making long-term water policies adaptive, which are then used to evaluate a new Dutch water policy approach called ‘Adaptive Delta Management’. Analysing this national policy approach and its translation to the Rotterdam region reveals that Dutch policy-makers are torn between adaptability and the urge to control. Reflecting on this dilemma, the paper suggests a stronger focus on monitoring and learning to strengthen the adaptability of long-term water policies. Moreover, increasing the adaptive capacity of society also requires a stronger engagement with local stakeholders including citizens and businesses.     

How planners and stakeholders learn with visualization tools: using learning sciences methods to examine planning processes

Planning researchers traditionally conceptualize learning as cognitive changes in individuals. In this tradition, scholars assess learning with pre- and post-measures of understandings or beliefs. While valuable for documenting individual change, such methods leave unexamined the social processes in which planners think, act, and learn in groups, which often involve the use of technical tools. The present interdisciplinary research program used Learning Sciences research methods, including conversation analysis, interaction analysis, and visualization of discourse codes, to understand how tools like agent-based models and geographic information systems mediate learning in planning groups. The objective was to understand how the use of these tools in participatory planning can help stakeholders learn about complex environmental problems, to make more informed judgments about the future. The paper provides three cases that illustrate the capacity of such research methods to provide insights into planning groups’ learning processes, and the mediating roles of planning tools.     

Multi-criteria analysis for improving strategic environmental assessment of water programmes. A case study in semi-arid region of Brazil

Multi-criteria analysis (MCA) is a family of decision-making tools that can be used in strategic environmental assessment (SEA) procedures to ensure that environmental, social and economic aspects are integrated into the design of human development strategies and planning, in order to increase the contribution of the environment and natural resources to poverty reduction. The aim of this paper is to highlight the contribution of a particular multi-criteria technique, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), in two stages of the SEA procedure applied to water programmes in developing countries: the comparison of alternatives and monitoring. This proposal was validated through its application to a case study in Brazilian semi-arid region. The objective was to select and subsequently monitor the most appropriate programme for safe water availability. On the basis of the SEA results, a project was identified and implemented with successful results. In terms of comparisons of alternatives, AHP meets the requirements of human development programme assessment, including the importance of simplicity, a multidisciplinary and flexible approach, and a focus on the beneficiaries' concerns. With respect to monitoring, the study shows that AHP contributes to SEA by identifying the most appropriate indicators, in order to control the impacts of a project.